


with grace in your heart and flowers in your hair

by LucyInTheSky (WishingTree)



Category: Power Rangers (2017)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-13
Updated: 2017-06-13
Packaged: 2018-11-12 12:39:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11162031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WishingTree/pseuds/LucyInTheSky
Summary: It was a totally average day in Angel Grove: the sun was shining, Trini had walked to school after squabbling with her brothers over breakfast,  the Ranger group chat was full of memes and desperate pleas for homework answers, and nobody had done the math homework.It was a totally average day, and now Trini was hanging off the edge of the school’s roof, wearing Jason’s shirt and only one shoe, and it was all Kimberly’s fault.





	with grace in your heart and flowers in your hair

**Author's Note:**

> Title from After the Storm by Mumford & Sons;

It was a totally average day in Angel Grove: the sun was shining, Trini had walked to school after squabbling with her brothers over breakfast, the Ranger group chat was full of memes and desperate pleas for homework answers, and nobody had done any math homework. There were no monster attacks or anything Ranger related happening, her parents had been pushy, the general student body population was annoying.

It was a totally average day, and now Trini was hanging off the edge of the school’s roof, wearing Jason’s shirt and only one shoe, and it was all Kimberly’s fault. 

“You know if you keep knocking tiles off like that, somebody’s going to notice we’re up here,” Kimberly poked her head out above Trini, reaching a hand down to help pull her up.

Trini gritted her teeth and didn’t answer, climbing back over the edge and grimacing when she felt the slats of the roof under her foot without the barrier of her shoe to separate them. Her shoe had come loose when she slipped, and was now lying on the lawn three stories down, leaving Trini only in her once-orange sock.

“Are you okay?” Kimberly asked as she helped her away from the edge, and Trini took the time to survey the roof properly, having fallen before she could take it in.

One of her old schools had renovated its roof into a sort of open plan garden terrace thing, open for teachers to take their classes and sometimes for students at lunch. Angel Grove High School’s roof had decidedly not been given the same treatment. It was old and cracked and dirty, and it was very obvious nobody had been up here for decades.

“Okay, Kim, what the hell!” 

They were supposed to be in biology right now, no doubt poring over some new lesson on ecosystems or something, but here they were standing on the roof instead. Trini stayed balanced on one leg as she looked at her socked foot in disgust. There was no way she was coming out of this with a clean sock and she knew it.

Kimberly turned, blinking innocent eyes with a slightly confused look on her face. “What?” 

“Why are you on the _roof_? How did you even find the door? We aren’t allowed on the roof, oh my god.” Trini was all for breaking the rules, but not in broad daylight in places where it was more likely they would get caught than not. In fact, of the two of them, it was Kimberly who was more adamant about following the rules at school, so Trini really wanted to know what kind of impulsive reasoning had lead them here. 

“Maybe I wanted some alone time with my lovely girlfriend, and this is the best view on school grounds,” Kimberly said, spreading her arms and smiling widely.

“Uh huh, and that’s why you just disappeared on me and Billy had to tell me which way you’d gone?” Trini grumbled as she crossed her arms, but Kimberly only looked at her with an expression of fond amusement, telling Trini she was finding this hilarious.

“Come on, who doesn’t like being up on the roof? If you’re not afraid of heights, being high up is always the best. Double awesome for you, you get to see what it's like to be taller!”

“Really? Short jokes? Again?” 

Kimberly grinned and led the way to a higher section of the roof, climbing up the slanted side of roof tiles to reach the flat section in the middle. Trini saw her bag sitting there, sketchbook lying open next to it. She sighed with one last look at her sock before trailing after her, peering down to see what she had been doing. Kimberly couldn’t draw people for shit, but she was pretty good at landscapes. When she saw Trini looking at it, Kimberly shrugged, giving her a small smile. 

“I figured the town might actually look pretty good from up here.” She tilted the sketchbook towards Trini to let her see the beginnings of the view. Of course, just because she was good at it didn’t mean she was justified in clambering up to the roof in broad daylight because she had a whim that the view of the town would look great from the top of the school. That wasn’t exactly the way to keep themselves inconspicuous.

Trini hovered one of her hands over the page, fingers tracing the steady lines. “You should probably take a picture so you can finish this later,” she said as she handed it back to her.

Kimberly brightened at the words and pulled her phone out of her pocket, spinning to do just that. Trini saw the camera click a few times, and then Kimberly lowered her phone and thought for a moment, turning to dart behind Trini and get a wider angle.

Trini stayed where she was and let her grin play across her face, turning her face up to feel the sunlight. Her hair blew around her face and she used both hands to push it away, but as she wrestled with that she turned around to see Kimberly now had her phone pointed at her instead of aimed at the skyline.

Her eyes widened in surprise. “Okay, okay, enough!” Trini swatted at her, laughing and ducking her head in an attempt to get her to stop taking pictures.

“Some of those were really good, I'll show you later. I’m going to set one as my wallpaper,” Kimberly grinned as she stowed her phone and moved back over to her bag.

Trini rolled her eyes, changing the subject. “I sent Jason ahead to tell the teacher you were puking your guts out in the bathroom and I was staying with you so we’d probably be late,” Trini said as Kimberly started to pack her stuff away.

Kimberly huffed in amusement as she looked up from collecting pencils. "Why am I the one puking my guts out?" 

“Because this is your fault.”

“My fault? Is not.” 

Trini watched as she slid the sketchbook into her bag, adjusting the contents properly. “Excuse me, who followed who up onto the _roof_?” 

Kimberly shrugged, zipping up her bag and standing. “Zack’s the one who started it.”

“Of course he did.”

“He said I couldn’t get away with cartwheeling down the hallway past Jameson’s room,” she declared, referencing the teacher who was widely accepted to be the strictest stickler for rules in the school.

Trini sighed. “So I’m assuming you did it right there?”

“Of course,” Kimberly looked at her with a bemused expression on her face as she set her bag down next to the door. “The day Zack Taylor shows me up in something like this is the day I die, probably. Anyways, yeah. Jameson was coming out of his classroom and I needed somewhere to hide. So I busted through the first door I found, and voila,” she spread her arms out, indicating the open space and sky, “Found the access to the roof.” 

“Wasn’t it locked or something though?”

“Oh, yeah. It was locked.”

Trini rolled her eyes when Kimberly looked completely unrepentant, and she didn’t know why she was still surprised by that. "I guess there was no way you'd just wait behind the door until he went back inside, huh.” 

"Trini, I found the way to the roof, who would just leave without checking it out?” 

Thinking about it, Trini hummed and conceded the point, tilting her head. “Okay I’ll give you that one.”

Kimberly went to the edge of the roof and flopped down, hanging her legs over the edge. “What’s not to like? The air,” she tilted her head back, eyes half closed, “Space to breath, sunshine.”  

Something in her voice made Trini stop, tilting her head as she looked her over carefully. She was wearing only a loose tank top, which in and of itself wasn’t an unusual thing, but Trini knew Kimberly had been wearing her favourite leather vest thing over it before, and now she can just barely see the corner of it hanging out from where Kimberly had stuffed it into her bag. It wasn’t particularly hot today, nor was she wearing anything particularly heavy, and Trini was pretty sure the air in the school was just the normal level of stifling.

Kimberly was good at hiding her thoughts, at presenting a fake front and not outwardly displaying anything she was feeling, but Trini was equally good at seeing through it. She’d spent years being the observer, and as much as Kimberly pushed it down, Trini could always see when she was feeling agitated. It didn’t happen often, but sometimes being in enclosed spaces would be too much for her, reminding her of being crushed in her Zord, and she would need to spend time outside and cool down.

Trini didn’t see any of the normal indicators, but just to be sure she had to ask. Hesitantly, she reached out a hand and placed it on top of Kimberly’s, going for casual as she sat down next to her.

“…Was it the walls?” she blurted out somewhat awkwardly, cringing when Kimberly turned to her with a confused smile on her face. Kimberly was so much better at this. They’d agreed early on that they would be there for each other through any effects of trauma that turned up after fighting Rita, and that included not letting the other push everything under the rug. Kimberly was much better at dancing around the subject, at subtly guiding Trini in the exact direction she needed to realize what she was doing and gracefully smoothing it all over.

Trini was much more likely to take a blunter approach. She’d never been good at the social navigating required for subtlety. 

“Oh,” Kimberly said softly, blinking in surprise, “The… Huh.” She got quiet for a moment, and Trini knew she’d spend all day hanging out on the roof with Kimberly if that was what she needed. 

But Kimberly only shook her head and took a deep breath, pressing her shoulder against Trini’s. Trini moved her hand to circle Kimberly’s wrist, squeezing gently, and Kimberly smiled and slid her hand through her grip to take her hand, squeezing back. 

“I’m good. I promise.” 

Satisfied, Trini nodded and leaned back on her hand, leaving the other where Kimberly was holding it in her lap.

They sat quietly, watching the cars on the distant roads and the occasional bird, hands clasped loosely together. A gentle breeze blew by, and Trini leaned to the side to rest her head on Kimberly’s shoulder, smiling when she felt Kimberly press a kiss to her hair before resting her head against Trini’s as well.

Eventually, Trini shifted and broke the silence, grimacing a little at the uncomfortable feeling of her tank top sticking to her under Jason’s flannel.

“You didn’t happen to like, kick Jason or something on your way down the hall, did you?”

“Kick Jason? What?” She felt Kimberly lift her head, and Trini shifted to look at her.

“All I know is I turned around to talk to Billy for two seconds, and then suddenly you’re gone, Jason’s yelling something, and his coffee is all over me. Zack was basically dying of laughter.” 

Kimberly’s face cleared, and she grinned again. “Ohh, that explains the shirt. Yeah, I was wondering.” 

“So this _is_ your fault,” Trini glared at her, expression edging on playfully, “You know, you ruined my shirt. I like that shirt.”

“It is a very nice shirt,” Kimberly said, nodding agreeably. “Especially when you’re the one wearing it. But you know where it’s even nicer?”

“If you say on your bedroom floor I’m leaving.” 

Kimberly only laughed, swaying to knock her shoulder against Trini’s and kicking her feet out. They enjoyed a few more moments of silence before Kimberly spoke again.

“You know, there’s coffee on his shirt too,” she said, poking her finger at a spot high near Trini's collarbone. Trini looked down automatically, and before she could blink Kimberly quickly brought her hand up and flicked her in the nose. Trini reeled away on instinct, making an offended noise and remembering why she was annoyed at her.

“Alright, that’s enough of that. Go get me my shoe,” Trini glared at Kimberly, pointing to the side where her sneaker had tumbled over.

“What, you want me to climb down to get it and then climb right back up? What if somebody sees?” Kimberly craned her neck to try and catch a glimpse of the shoe on the ground, wind blowing her hair around her face.

Trini scoffed, “Oh, now you’re worried about somebody noticing? Just get me my shoe! My sock is gross enough already, I am not walking down there.”

“Aw, come on,” Kimberly edged closer, making a kissy face, “How ‘bout I carry you down and we’ll get it on the way to class? It would be totally romantic, walking through the halls with you in my ar– ” 

Trini scowled and shoved her away, cutting off her sentence.

Now, the thing about their newfound Ranger strength was they had to moderate it for literally everyone and everything, except for each other and maybe exceptionally sturdy concrete walls. That meant that the whole team was frequently knocking into each other with their enhanced strength simply because they could, a relief from being careful all the time.

So, on instinct, when Trini shoved Kimberly, she shoved her hard.

Shoved her right off the roof.

Trini’s eyes widened as Kimberly tumbled over the edge with a yelp and a flurry of limbs, disappearing from sight. She scrambled over to the side and looked down, only slightly concerned about her girlfriend given that with their Ranger abilities they were fully capable of dealing with a three-story drop, but grateful that she’d at least had the foresight to push her over the side with no classroom windows. She could only imagine the reactions of the school if Kimberly Hart started just randomly falling past windows.

As Trini watched, Kimberly flailed her arms and flipped herself in midair, hitting the ground clumsily but still managing to roll with it and come up in a crouch. She stayed there for a moment, looking up with her mouth open in a laugh Trini couldn’t hear, and then she stood and put her hands on her hips. She stared up at Trini and said something Trini was sure was exceptionally crass, and Trini pointed insistently at her shoe. Kimberly waved her hand carelessly as she moved towards it.

Trini grinned as she pulled back from the edge, waiting for Kimberly to scale the building again. A few moments later, Kimberly’s hand appeared over the edge of the roof and then she pulled herself up, using a bit of her super strength to launch herself into the air and land in a needlessly dramatic pose.

Trini only raised an eyebrow, not impressed. “Took you long enough.” 

Kimberly rolled her eyes and whipped Trini’s shoe at her, and Trini just managed to duck to the side so it wouldn’t nail her in the forehead, hand shooting up to grab it out of the air.

“My hero,” she said sarcastically, sitting down to pull it on and retie the laces, “You’re so kind.” 

Kimberly only gave her a mischievous look as she continued to brush herself off, knocking dirt and grass from her clothes.

“You know, I think I should stop spending so much time with you,” Trini said as she finished tying off her shoe and brushed off her hands, “You’re a bad influence.”

“That might be the meanest thing you’ve ever said to me. After all we’ve been through? _I’m_ a bad influence?”

When Trini didn’t react, only propping her chin on her raised knee and watching her with a quirked eyebrow, Kimberly huffed and stepped forward. She held her hand out, posture tall and dignified even as she grinned down at Trini. “Do you trust me?” she asked, leaning forward with a faux grave expression on her face, given away by the way her eyes were crinkling and how she was biting her lip to stop her laughter.

“Are you – trying to do Aladdin?”

“Yeah,” Kimberly nodded, keeping her hand extended as she gestured for Trini to take it. “Now, come on. Do you trust me?”

Trini kept staring, tilting her head and putting on an exaggerated thinking face. “I’m not really sure. You did pull me off a cliff that one time, it’s hard to recover from a –”  

Kimberly darted forward and grabbed Trini’s wrists, hauling her up and trying to wrap her in a bear hug while Trini struggled, threatening to push her off the roof again.

“It really takes away from any threats we make since we’ve already established that we’d all die for each other,” Kimberly mused, finally letting her go.

Trini shrugged. “Yeah, I know.”

“Now, on to the important question,” Kimberly put her hands on her hips again, “Do you have a problem with Aladdin? Because I will fight you.”

“Oh no, I just figured if anything you’d be doing Cinderella, because of the shoe and all that,” Trini lifted her foot up and shook it at her.

“What? The prince from Cinderella is lame, why would I want to do that?” 

“Well, unless you deliver on a magical flying carpet now, I’m going to think you’re lame too.” 

“No flying carpet, but can I interest you in this instead? Straight from Angel Grove High’s own ECA garden and courtesy of Ms. Caldwell’s botanical skills.” 

She pulled a flower out from behind her back with a flourish, and Trini blinked in surprise when she held it out, offering it to her.

“A pretty flower for the pretty lady?”

It was a bright yellow flower Trini didn’t know the name of, the stem snapped off and somehow perfectly shaped even though Trini assumed Kimberly had pulled it out of her back pocket.

“You’re being a cheeseball again,” Trini said out of habit, but as she reached out she knew she was staring with what must be a slightly awed expression on her face, and she willfully ignored that fact along with her slightly shaking hands. Nobody had ever given her a flower before.

Kimberly placed it her palm with a endearing smile on her face, patiently watching her turn it over in her hands to examine it before stepping closer and holding her hand out again with her eyebrows raised, wordlessly asking if she could have it back. Trini let her take it, angling her head when Kimberly nudged her chin with her fingers. “Ms. Caldwell would kill you if she found out you took one of her flowers, by the way.”

“I can take her,” Kimberly said absentmindedly, concentrating on moving Trini’s hair away from her face.

Trini let her tuck the flower behind her ear and carefully smooth out her hair, leaving her hand on her cheek for a moment before stepping away once more, this time heading back to where she had left her bag, Trini following her over.

She opened the hatch, gesturing for Trini to go first with a sweeping bow, and Trini bonked her gently on the head as she passed, careful to keep control of her strength this time.

They climbed down the ladder and secured the door behind them, ducking back out into the hallway once they ensured the coast was clear. Kimberly grabbed her hand as they walked, footsteps echoing down the empty hallway, and Trini swiped her thumb over her knuckles before linking their fingers. The hall was filled with a strange sort of stillness, unsettling without the bustle of students, but Trini was happy to be passing quiet lockers for once.

Suddenly, Kimberly pushed her to the side through the closest set of doors, leading to a staircase. 

“What –”  

“Shh!” 

Trini’s back hit the wall, head colliding somewhat painfully with the brick, but she only blinked and shook her head minutely to clear it, craning her neck to try and see what was going on.

Unfortunately, her range of vision was limited by the corner of the wall and Kimberly’s head, so she waited for Kimberly to clue her in, muscles tensed. The odds of a Ranger emergency happening at school during 5th period was unlikely, but their luck wasn’t generally known for being convenient where their lives were concerned.

Kimberly wasn’t going into fight mode, so Trini slowly let her muscles uncoil, taking in their position as she waited.

They were tucked into the corner of the stairwell, and Kimberly was pressing her against the wall with her hands on either side of her head. Her elbows were brushing the sides of Trini’s shoulders, but she was watching the hallway, seemingly unaware of how she had positioned them. Trini’s own hands had fallen instinctively to Kimberly’s hips, and she shivered and breathed in, smelling the faintest hint of Kimberly's perfume, laundry detergent, and… grass?

Trini blinked, taking in another deep breath.

Yup. It was grass. 

Looking closer, Trini spotted a few errant blades of grass still sticking out of Kimberly’s hair, evidently left over from her roll on the lawn.

Trini brought one of her hands up around Kimberly’s side, arms still bracketing her on either side of her head. She ran her fingers slowly through Kimberly’s hair, dislodging the bits of grass Kimberly had missed, and Kimberly turned her head back at the touch, nose almost brushing against Trini’s as their eyes met. She blinked slowly, eyes somehow brighter and darker at the same time.

Reflexively Trini tilted her head up and nudged her nose gently against Kimberly’s, biting her lip to contain a giggle when Kimberly went a little cross-eyed for a moment to track the movement so close to her face. She gave up after a second, huffing a small laugh and pulling back ever so slightly to see Trini properly.

Trini smiled as she met her eyes again, lips always curving up so easily around Kimberly, and tilted her head to the side.

“Oh,” Kimberly breathed, a wicked grin spreading across her face, and Trini caught her breath. Kimberly purposefully leaned closer, pressing her hips flush against Trini’s, and Trini barely managed to bite back her moan when she pinned her more firmly against the wall. Kimberly didn’t move for a long moment, hooded eyes watching Trini, and then finally she dropped her gaze and ducked her head, capturing Trini’s lips in a searing kiss.

Trini instinctively moved closer, allowing Kimberly’s arms fall and wrap loosely around her neck. Letting her eyes slip shut, she had only just started to sink into it when Kimberly abruptly pulled away and then yanked Trini down so they were both crouching below the upper partition of the door with the window.

Due to Kimberly’s arms still being wrapped around her neck, Trini made a choked noise and put her hands out, trying to stop her face from smashing into Kimberly’s shoulder. Embarrassingly, the move had Trini completely off balance, and she teetered on her toes, hitting her arm against the wall as she tried to steady herself and missed. She would never admit that she was so weak-kneed that her legs would have definitely given out if not for the support of the wall behind her and Kimberly pressing against her.

Kimberly held a finger to her lips, giving Trini a warning look and then indicating to the window above them. Trini only blinked at her, trying to clear the Kimberly-Hart-is-my-girlfriend-and-sometimes-kisses-me fog from her mind as she looked in the direction she was pointing, only then noticing the pair of footsteps Kimberly must have heard, about to pass the door they were currently hiding behind. They both waited for the footsteps to fade before cautiously rising to look through the window, Trini holding her hand down to help Kimberly to her feet.

“I just want to double check something here, you do know my mom will literally kill me if I get caught skipping class to make out with a girl in the stairwell, right?” Trini asked in a hushed whisper as they crept though the doors and continued on their path towards their classroom.

“Ah, but what a way to go.” 

Trini punched her in the arm. “I’m serious!”

“I know, I know, I’m sorry,” Kimberly laughed, holding her arm, “I’m kidding. Relax, we’re not going to get caught!” 

As soon as the words left her mouth, the click of a door opening echoed through the hall. They both froze and stared at each other with wide eyes, because that was the school’s office door, and it was closely followed by the sound of the principal’s heels on the floor. In the moment where everything was frozen, Trini squeezed her eyes shut, aggressively flailing her hands once to express her disbelief.

They scrambled into motion, jostling each other as they both moved to go in opposite directions, but then Kimberly grabbed Trini’s arm and shoved her backwards, into what Trini registered as the bathroom.

Taking a few stumbling steps, she knocked her hip against the counter and winced, more at the sight of the small spider-webbed cracks that appeared on the surface and extended towards the sink than from the pain.

Kimberly followed closely, pushing to make sure they were both out of sight of the doorway. Standing close enough that their knees were knocking together, they both froze, Kimberly holding Trini’s elbows as they gripped each other’s arms. Trini leaned her forehead against Kimberly’s, listening carefully for footsteps outside. Her pulse was pounding in her ears, and she held her breath. She could feel Kimberly doing the same, and her fingers flexed around her arms as the clicking of heels got closer, mind scrambling to think of a plausible reason for their current predicament in case they were about to be caught.

The footsteps didn’t slow, continuing right past the door, and Trini slumped forward in relief, hiding her face in Kimberly’s neck. She felt Kimberly’s chest shake with a gentle laugh as she put one hand on the back of Trini's head to comb through the hair at the nape of her neck, the other snaking around her waist.

Trini sighed and pulled away, not far enough to break her grip, but then spotted something unfamiliar out of the corner of her eye.

“Kim, this is the guy’s bathroom.” Trini instinctively pushed closer to Kimberly and looked around with distaste. 

“Well I’m sorry, the girl’s is on the other side of the hall, would you rather we go walk across there instead? We can wave at the principal while we go.” 

Trini scoffed and rolled her eyes, but caught her breath when Kimberly slid her fingers into Trini's hair again, using both hands to push it away from her face and around her ears. Her hands rested on either side of Trini’s neck for a moment before she slid closer and pushed the rest of her hair over her shoulders, using the motion to rest her elbows on Trini’s shoulders and cross her arms behind Trini’s head.

This left her face much closer to Trini’s than before, and Trini tried to stay still, watching her warily.

She really didn’t want to get caught making out with her girlfriend in the guys bathroom either.

Kimberly noted her look and smirked, pressing a quick kiss to Trini’s nose and then another high on her cheek before pulling away. “Come on, it sounds like the hall’s empty again.”

Off-balance once more, Trini teetered for a moment before she could follow Kimberly, the tips of her ears burning red.

Kimberly stuck her head out the door, glancing furtively from side to side, and then glanced back to shoot Trini a cheeky grin, taking a moment to fix her hair before stepping out the door and beckoning Trini after her. Stepping out, Trini looked down and automatically tried to straighten her shirt, frowning when the sight of the too-long hem reminded her why she was sneaking through the halls instead of sitting in biology class.

“You know, I never got into these situations before I met you,” Trini grumped. 

“Yes, I know, your life was totally dull before you met me.”

“It wasn’t a compliment.”

Kimberly grinned, tugging on the front of Trini’s shirt. “Hm, maybe not, but I’m taking it as one.” 

Trini stared at her flatly, unimpressed. “Kim, I almost fell off the roof.”

“Hey, I _did_  fall off the roof! Well, actually – you pushed me.” 

“Oh yeah? Well you took me over a _cliff_ , the roof is nothing.”

“Are you ever going to let that go?”

Trini crossed her arms. “I’ll let it go when you’ve done something to make it up to me.”

“Aw, don’t pout. Come on, I'll buy you a smoothie after school,” Kimberly tugged on her hand and smiled brightly at her, eyes shining happily as she lead the way down the hall.

“Fine. As long as it's something yellow.” Trini grumbled, but she let Kimberly swing her arm around her shoulders as they walked back to class all the same.

 


End file.
